Rethinking path dependence and lock-ins in regions, economy and society

In our current crisis-ridden times of multiple, cascading pressures, shocks and disruptions, there is an increasingly pressing need for adaptation, flexibility and change in regions, economies, societies and policy models. However, no matter whether present-day crises have a long durée character, such as climate change and the accelerating AI Revolution, or are sudden shocks, such as the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine War and the global energy crisis, the needed change is often hindered by inertia and hindrances to change. There is a tension between the pressure for change and the path-dependent legacies and structures of past developments: between transformation and ‘lock-in’. Over recent decades, the notions of path dependence and lock-in have become prominent ideas for conceptualising the various self-reinforcing, self-reproducing and autopoietic mechanisms that impart inertia and strong continuity in the economy and society. The economists David (1985) and Arthur (1989) in their seminal work on technological lock-ins first developed the concepts and introduced them in the (evolutionary) economics literature (Brenner and zu Jeddeloh, 2024). In the 1990s, Grabher (1993b) introduced path dependence and lock-ins into economic geography and regional studies in his seminal study on the Ruhr Area, in which he distinguished between functional, cognitive and political lock-ins. Martin and Sunley (2006, 2010) and Martin (2010) further conceptualised path dependence and lock-ins in economic geography and regional studies. According to Martin and Sunley (2006, 399) “a path-dependent process or system is one whose outcome evolves as a consequence of the process’s or system’s own history”. The related lock-in concept is defined as the “… notion that most fully captures the idea that the combination of historical contingency and the emergence of self-reinforcing effects, steers a technology, industry or regional economy along one ‘path’ rather than another” (Martin, 2010, 3). Both have been figuring prominently in the paradigm of evolutionary economic geography (Kogler et al., 2023). Also, Martin’s (2010) paper, which sought to move beyond equilibrist notions of path-dependent lock-in to a more evolutionary perspective of regional path dependence, itself triggered a lively debate on the topic (see Drahokoupil, 2012; Oosterlynck, 2012; Simandan, 2012; Martin, 2012). Empirically, they have been used in economic geography and regional studies in a wide selection of studies, including for example in studies on why some regions specialise in particular industries, on why some regional economies fail to diversify, and on the development of clusters through time (Baglieri et al., 2012; Hassink, 2010; Mossig and Schieber, 2016; König and Brenner, 2025). Path dependence and lock-ins are by definition context-dependent and hence geographically different, and thus also by definition, a geographical phenomenon. They are hence also related to place dependence (Martin and Sunley, 2006, 2010; Chu and Hassink, 2023), which “… stems from the local reproduction of localized knowledge, territorial institutions and vested interests embedded in places …” (Boschma et al., 2017, 37). More recently, this literature in economic geography and regional studies has been extended by emphasising emotional lock-ins and regional embitterment in left-behind regions (Hannemann et al., 2024) and discussing path dependence and lock-ins in relation to so-called regional development traps (Roessler, 2023; Balland and Boschma, 2025; Iammarino et al., 2020). Path dependence and lock-ins are also increasingly discussed in connection to different forms of agencies, such as reproductive and maintenance agency (Bækkelund, 2021; Stihl, 2023; Lemke, 2025). Moreover, these studies use various levels of analysis to examine path dependencies and lock-ins, such as entrepreneurs, networks, technology, industries and institutions (Henning et al., 2013; Martin and Sunley, 2006; Evenhuis, 2016; Kogler et al., 2023, 382), which may be prone to path dependencies and lock-ins to varying degrees. Each of these levels also emphasises different self-reinforcing mechanisms that lead to path dependence (Henning et al., 2013). According to Henning et al. (2013, 1354), “… the region can in fact be seen as a bundle of several potential sources of path dependence on different levels”. Furthermore, Frangenheim et al. (2020) have highlighted potential interactions between multiple paths in a regional economy, which may affect path dependence and lock-ins and also increase the complexity of their investigation and identification. Recently, Goldstein et al. (2023) show in a review that meanwhile a wide breadth of disciplines beyond economic geography study path dependence and lock-ins in one form or another, from economics, to sociology, organisation studies, political science, development studies, energy studies, political ecology, agrarian studies and socio-environmental studies. Path dependence and lock-ins have recently been particularly influential in studies explaining the slow speed of sustainability transitions due to carbon lock-ins (Unruh, 2000, 2002; Seto et al., 2016; Simoens et al., 2022a, 2022b; Buschmann and Oels, 2019; Rosenbloom, 2020; Herman et al., 2025; Urban et al., 2024; Eitan and Hekkert, 2023). This has been discussed also in the framework of Geels’ multi-level perspective and lock-ins aiming at maintaining existing socio-technical regimes (Geels, 2019). According to Markard et al. (2020, 5), “… many socio-technical systems are still characterized by inertia and resistance …”. Moreover, path dependence and lock-ins have been studied in relation to lobbying for subsidies for the agricultural sector, particularly in Europe (Nischwitz and Chojnowski, 2019; Heyen and Wolff, 2019; Weituschat et al., 2022). These lock-ins involve multi-functional actors, acting in multi-scalar networks. Similar political lock-ins have been observed in infrastructural projects (Cantarelli and Flyvbjerg, 2013; Cantarelli et al., 2010, 2022) and in a broader political sense (Olson, 1982; Mahoney, 2001, 2006; Pierson, 2000; Borck et al., 2012; Beyer, 2026). Palley (2022) recently linked policy lock-ins to ‘varieties of capitalism’, highlighting how institutional configurations can constrain the scope for alternative development paths. At the micro level, path dependence and lock-ins can be discussed in relation to social networks (Granovetter, 1973), social capital and bonding. Bonding social capital is defined as “… inward looking [networks that] tend to reinforce exclusive identities and homogeneous groups” (Putnam, 2000, 22). From a negative perspective “… strong bonding within a place will result in rent-seeking, insider-outsider problems, clientelism, and nepotistic practices, which block economic progress …” (Muringani et al., 2021, 4). According to Antonietti and Boschma (2021, 764) “… bonding social capital increases the risk of cognitive lock-in …”. Another perspective is that bonding social capital can “… have both positive and negative consequences, depending on the context …” (Muringani et al., 2021, 4). One important aspect of that context is human capital promoting economic growth, which in turn reduces “… the danger of lock-in associated with bonding social capital” (Muringani et al., 2021, 4). Moreover, in addition to the thematic and disciplinary extensions, path dependence and lock-ins have been extended conceptually, with the integration of concepts, such as path creation, path-breaking and path plasticity (Brenner and zu Jeddeloh, 2024). Parts of these conceptual extensions are about understanding and explaining situations in which negative effects of path dependence and lock-ins can be avoided or weakened. ‘Lock-out’, for example, describes the situation where certain regions are bypassed or unsuitable for a new technology/industry. This may not be because of their region-specific lock-in (lack of adaptability), but by virtue of new developments being assisted elsewhere, for instance by government policy, or because of biases in the capital and financial markets. Furthermore, digitalisation processes and platforms might weaken physical lock-ins, as they potentially weaken those factors affecting path dependence and lock-ins that are closely linked to geographical proximity (see for instance Bohnsack et al., 2021). However, they might at the same time also strengthen new kind of algorithm-based lock-ins (Carolan, 2022), as well as group think related to filter bubbles and echo chambers (Fox, 2019). Moreover, according to Törnberg (2023, 4, italics in original), digital platforms and their dominance even stem among others “… from the strategic employment of infrastructuralization to produce lock-ins: platforms seek to provide basic functions that become entrenched, creating dependence on a privatized infrastructure …”. Moreover, path dependence and lock-ins can be avoided through leapfrogging in emerging and developing economies (Unruh and Carrillo-Hermosilla, 2006), or weakened through processes of exnovation (Turnheim, 2023; David, 2017), the deliberate phasing out of undesirable innovations, and path break-out, the weakening of self-reinforcing mechanisms (Apajalahti and Kungl, 2022). This special issue aims at rethinking the impact of path dependence and lock-ins on regions, the economy and society from different disciplinary perspectives, on the one hand, and at working out an analytical framework with common phenomena and mechanisms that either strengthen or weaken the effects of path dependence and lock-ins, on the other. Particularly in current crisis-ridden and poly-crisis times, we believe that a review of the path dependence and lock-in literature in economic geography and neighbouring along with and is for understanding adaptation, flexibility as well as and hindrances to change. 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